Karissa Boudreau's mother charged with her daughter's murder

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

The mother of Karissa Boudreau – the 12-year-old girl whose frozen body was found two weeks after she was reported missing in late January – has been charged with first-degree murder in her daughter’s death.

Penny Boudreau, 34, was arrested Friday in Halifax through a joint investigation involving the Southwest Major Crime Unit and the Bridgewater Police Service.

On Saturday the police issued a release saying they had made “significant progress” in the Karissa Boudreau case. A news conference was held later in the afternoon where the police confirmed the girl’s mother is being charged in her murder.

Corporal Dana Parsons of the Southwest Major Crime Unit, which is based out of Yarmouth, said on Saturday that police felt earlier in the week that they had enough evidence to make an arrest. He said over the past few months the police have been awaiting DNA evidence and employing “other investigational techniques.”

“We’ve been working on that for months now. Things just came to a head this week. We planned our arrest…and actually executed a couple of search warrants last evening (Friday) that coordinated with the same time of the arrest,” said Cpl. Parsons.

Boudreau was arrested in Halifax, which is where she is now living. She will appear in Bridegwater court on Monday.

Cpl. Parsons said on Saturday there won’t be any other people arrested in connection with this case.

Karissa was reported missing on Jan. 27. Her mother said she had disappeared after being left alone in the family’s car. The mother said she and her daughter had argued that day. Penny Boudreau told investigators she went into a grocery store. When she came out, she said, her daughter was gone.

Two days later the girl’s mother made a tearful public plea for her daughter’s safe return.

Karissa’s disappearance sparked an extensive search in the Bridgewater area where she was living. Divers searched the river near the Sobeys parking lot where the girl had reportedly last been seen. Police dogs were used to try to pick up a scent but the weather hampered any such effort. Her photo could be seen on missing posters from one end of the province to the other, and even beyond Nova Scotia’s borders.

Karissa had only recently moved to Bridgewater, having grown up in Shelburne County where she attended elementary school. She was born at the Yarmouth hospital. She still has many relatives living in southwestern Nova Scotia.

About two weeks after she disappeared, a body was discovered Feb. 9 by a passerby on the banks of the LaHave River in Bridgewater. The identity of the remains was not officially released for a few days but the public immediately feared the worst. There was great sadness when police confirmed that the remains were those of Karissa Boudreau.

At Hillcrest Academy in Shelburne where she had attended school, a wall of honour lined the hallway.

At the site where her body was found, a memorial in the form of hundreds of teddy bears quickly sprung up as people mourned the loss of a young life that had ended too soon.

The public’s sadness eventually also turned to disbelief and anger when the police later confirmed that the child had been murdered. The police have not disclosed how she was killed.

Early on in the investigation two people were arrested by later released after questioning. The police said they could only hold them for 24 hours without laying charges. They did say the people were known to Karissa.

Since their investigation began, the police have been under public pressure to lay charges in the case.

Cpl. Parsons said the police have been working on the Karissa Boudreau case “every single day” since it was determined she was the victim of a homicide. He said the police spoke with the girl’s family before going public Saturday with the fact that an arrest had been made.

As for the teddy bears that were left in Karissa's memory at what became a memorial site for the little girl, they were cleaned and bagged with a tag attached to each one that read, "For you, in loving memory of Karissa Paige Boudreau 1995-2008." Accompanied with each bear was a letter that included a short story about Karissa. The teddy bears were donated to charitable organizations for children in traumatic situations.

Other examples of where the bears were sent included 56 schools from Yarmouth to Chester, veterinary hospitals and animal shelters, the Canadian Red Cross, police departments across the province, fire departments in Canada, shelters, and orphanages in the Dominican Republic. Approximately 730 bears were distributed in Karissa's memory.